1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus and a recording method using a recording head, on which a plurality of recording elements are arranged. In particular the present invention relates to a recording apparatus such as an ink jet printer and the like using the recording head by ejecting ink from a plurality of nozzles arranged thereon.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Recently, recording apparatuses employing an ink-jet method for recording on a recording medium by ejecting ink from nozzles arranged on the recording head have been widely applied to printers, facsimile machines, copying machines and so forth. Particularly, color printers capable of recording color images by using a plurality of colors have been remarkably widely used as images of high quality have been enhanced with progress of the color printers. In addition to a high quality image, a higher recording rate is an important factor for the recording apparatus to increase in popularity, so liquid droplet eject driving frequencies of recording heads have been raised higher along with an increase in the number of nozzles arranged in the recording heads for higher-rated recording.
However, in inkjet apparatuses, sometimes so-called “non-eject” states, where ink droplets cannot be ejected, are caused by dust entered into nozzles of the recording head during production of the head, deteriorated nozzles due to a long period of use, deteriorated ejection elements, and so forth. In the case of the non-eject state caused by deteriorated nozzles or elements, it is likely that the non-eject state happens casually when the recording apparatuses are in use.
In some cases, states where ejecting directions of ink droplets are deviated greatly from a desired direction (hereinafter also referred to as “twisted ejection”) and states where ejecting volumes of ink droplets are much different from a desired volume (hereinafter also referred to as “dispersion in droplet diameter”) are observed instead of non-eject states. Since such deteriorated nozzles largely deteriorate quality of recorded images, these nozzles cannot be employed for recording. Hereinafter such nozzles are also included in and explained as the non-eject statuses or states.
Such non-eject statuses and so forth were not so problematic in the past, since non-eject status generating frequencies could be suppressed by modifying manufacturing conditions and the like. However, the non-eject statuses have become problems not to be ignored, as nozzle numbers have been increased for attaining the above-mentioned higher-rate recording. In order to manufacture recording heads which do not include non-eject nozzles and excellent recording heads which hardly cause the non-eject statuses, manufacturing costs will be increased, which leads to higher cost recording beads.
When the non-eject statuses occur, defects such as white streaks and the like are observed in recorded images. In order to compensate such white streaks, some techniques are performed such that white streaks are compensated by recording with other normal nozzles by utilizing a divided recording method where the recording head is scanned a plurality of times for recording.
However, in order to attain the above-mentioned higher-rate recording, it is preferable to finish recording by one scanning, so called “one path recording”, but it is very difficult to compensate unrecorded portions due to the non-eject statuses or to make such portions unrecognizable in the one path recording. In another recording method for recording by executing a plurality of scannings on a predetermined area of a recording medium, so-called “multi scan”, sometimes it is difficult to compensate completely depending on positions or the number of non-eject nozzles.